Burrowing Snails

[Narwhal]

Barely. They will climb on to the plants and glass at night and eat a little algae, but if you want an algae eater get moonsnails, ramshorns, (I have never kept these, but they are supposed to be good) mystery trapdoors,(horrendously big and rather ugly) or apples(I have only kept the kind that grows to 2", not the giant kind). You can also get ancistrus, farowella, ottos, mollies, neocardina, bamboo shrimp, or any of many others, but if you have a serious algae problem, you need to address your ammonia/nitrate, and starve it, not harness an army to destroy the algae. Much easier for you, and healthier for your fish.

It is really not that serious. Ramshorns do keep glass algae down, but will not touch hair algae. I believe I have access to giant apple snails, but they apparently will eat all plants, including Anubis, which I have found pretty resistant against most fish. My hope is to maybe move my BNPs from tank to tank, although since I have heard that cichlids will kill new plecos, it may be better to just leave them in. But back to the main question, I am looking for sand aerating snails. My issue with MTS is there is no going back once I buy one. I have heard loaches often have problems eating MTS. That is my other issue, is it possible for a larger fish like a large syno (7-10 in) or medium cichlid (4-6 in) on MTS?

 

[Narwhal]

Barely. They will climb on to the plants and glass at night and eat a little algae, but if you want an algae eater get moonsnails, ramshorns, (I have never kept these, but they are supposed to be good) mystery trapdoors,(horrendously big and rather ugly) or apples(I have only kept the kind that grows to 2", not the giant kind). You can also get ancistrus, farowella, ottos, mollies, neocardina, bamboo shrimp, or any of many others, but if you have a serious algae problem, you need to address your ammonia/nitrate, and starve it, not harness an army to destroy the algae. Much easier for you, and healthier for your fish.

It is really not that serious. Ramshorns do keep glass algae down, but will not touch hair algae. I believe I have access to giant apple snails, but they apparently will eat all plants, including Anubis, which I have found pretty resistant against most fish. My hope is to maybe move my BNPs from tank to tank, although since I have heard that cichlids will kill new plecos, it may be better to just leave them in. But back to the main question, I am looking for sand aerating snails. My issue with MTS is there is no going back once I buy one. I have heard loaches often have problems eating MTS. That is my other issue, is it possible for a larger fish like a large syno (7-10 in) or medium cichlid (4-6 in) on MTS?

 

[J. H.]

The only thing that will eat hair algae reliably that I know of are mollies and guppies. People have kept the tougher mollies with various cichlids (mbuna, GTs, etc.), but I think it is hit or miss. Mbuna may eat it as well. Channelcats, goldfish and plecos all love to eat any snails I have kept them with, (piles of sucked shells left around the tank will attest to that) but I have never kept any of these with MTS, so I don't know if they will eat them. Assasin snails are supposed to work, but I have never had them. monkeybike seems to be doing a good job of trapping them.

 

[monkeybike]

My high tech trap. I load it with a half dozen algae wafers before lights out and it's full by morning

 

[Narwhal]

Is that a dog bowl?
Based on my testing Mbuna eat Hair algae. But I am not looking to alleviate this issue with snails.
I Found some talk about variants of MTS on the planted tank forum, the picture is hard to view because it was on photobucket, but it shows a couple species of Melanoides. Do other species burrow? The actual MTS, Melanoides tuberculate, is found across the world, like in Africa, so are their regional varients as well?